


Memoirs of Another Kind

by Fanburbia



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-28
Updated: 2015-02-28
Packaged: 2018-03-15 15:31:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3452369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fanburbia/pseuds/Fanburbia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel finds himself sold to an okiya in a small hanamachi where Angels who are prized for their beauty are taught grace, elegance and skills to entertain well-off humans. Dean/Cas AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Memoirs of Another Kind

I barely remember it now. The feeling of wings at my shoulders, of a breath of wind in my hair. The freedom of my true form. In fact, I remember very little of my home and what I do remember makes no sense to me. I remember a clear day, sunny and warm. I remember a kite. Everything else is hazy and distant.

It doesn't matter now, how I started my journey. Only when it was started because it was the beginning of a great fall. Slowly, violently the Heavens turned my kind loose. It wasn't a sweeping gesture, only a few at a time. Here and there, scattered to earth with the need to scramble and find hosts for the duration of our time here. I was one of the first, along with my sister Anna.

What happened forever changed the course of my life.

You see, in those days Angels were rare. The humans knew what we were but there were so few of us that it was still a novelty. We were shown great reverence by some, great respect. Still others formed communities around us, eager to hear any wisdom from on high. But those examples are precious and few.

The reality of the situation was that Angels weren't only rare, we were beautiful, too. Graceful, elegant. Magnificent. And most humans couldn't find it in themselves to respect us or treat us fairly. We were a commodity and, yes. We were bought and sold that way.

The night I awoke in a grassy field to streaks of fire in the sky was the night my universe was turned inside out. But I had, at least, prepared myself.

Years before I'd chosen a vessel. A faithful and good child of about seven or eight who called out to me in prayer. A dark muss of hair that never seemed to take to a combing and blue eyes. I was lucky. But I was not only fairly small, I wasn't used to my vessel. I was tired for the first time in my life. Really tired. Hungry, disoriented. I wasn't able to fight or defend myself, I'd never had to before. Not like that, by hand without the aid of abilities that rightfully belonged to me. And when the hunters first laid their hands on me I was powerless to stop them, as was Anna who'd never found herself a willing vessel and wouldn't be much help to me without one.

She should have left me there. Searched for someone to accept the gift but the men had ways of trapping grace and essence. A crystal orb, some spoken Latin. She was to come with us, by hook or by crook, in a wooden wagon pulled by a rather restless chestnut horse.

I slept some on the way and they fed me. Fish, honey and bread. Things they'd read about in their Bibles. It was an effort and I tried to be appreciative on the outside, all the while scheming. To free my sister and myself. To get away and escape our fate. To run.

But I couldn't. I was weak, exhausted and the prepared food did little to ease my hunger or my mind. We made a stop now and then to allow my captors to sell off what they had hunted, trade for things they needed. It was then that I found myself and Anna being handed off to a man they only called Driver, who dressed in a rather feminine print of feed sack and seemed more than content not to speak.

I tried with everything I had to enjoy the trip. I wasn't sure what lay ahead but I knew that I'd want to remember all that surrounded me. The branches, the shape of their leaves. The colors of flowers and blossoming trees. It would all be impressed into my psyche to think about when things got too hard. My Father's creations, so perfect in their imperfections. So beautiful.

The drive was bumpy and rough. Through fields and over small bridges and cobblestone roads. We drove through the morning and when the sun was high we stopped to let the chestnut, who the driver called Miu, drink, graze and rest in the shade. And to give the driver, a kind old man with weathered skin and a face full of drooping features, the time to rest as well.

He didn't watch me, he didn't have to. I knew he had Anna - in that palm-sized glowing orb he kept in a round, wooden box lined with twisted red velvet. I knew, but as weak as I was I stood no chance of taking it from him and he knew it. So he rested in the shade of an old, half dead willow tree with my sister's prison pillowed beneath his head.

I wouldn't get anywhere with it and so I did the only thing I could do that might give me an advantage. I ate the rest of the food that had been gifted to me and then curled into a sunny spot in the back of the wagon to sleep.

It was a bump in the road, the slap of wooden wheel against mud and drops of warm rain on my cheek that woke me. We were moving again and the landscape had changed around me as I slept. I brushed my sleeve over my face to wipe away the weather and peered over the driver's seat to see what lay ahead. I couldn't have predicted it. I'd never seen anything so beautiful or terrifying in my life.

We were on a muddy, gray hill a good mile out of town but it wasn't a town, exactly. What I was looking at was a town within a city, sectioned off away from the rest of the city with gated red and gold walls that were so high that, even from halfway down the hill, it was next to impossible to see anything but the beautiful curved rooftops and the evidence of trees in full bloom.

It took Miu a good, long while to trot us down through a street busy with vendors and bustling people before finally making it to the beautifully ornate gates. Tall, round and painted in high contrasts of red, gold and black.

There was a man there, sitting on a stone bench beside the gate with a sleepy expression. But when he saw the wagon he didn't hesitate but took to his feet and approached. The driver slowed and no words were exchanged, only a fist-sized sack that jingled with coins when it was thrown to the gate keeper. He nodded in appreciation and it wasn't long before he had the the gate pulled back for them and the wagon continued on.

The contrast between the city and the gated community inside it was striking. Outside those walls were chaos and bustle, the sounds of busy people on busy streets at a busy time of day. But inside? Calm. The road they were on was small, made for foot traffic and jinrikisha, that ran along side and was paved right up to a small river that flowed through the center of the community. It was flanked with shops and street vendors on the outsides of the road while the other side boasted a view of the river and a handful of ornamental fruit trees.

We took our time through the town's heart and I was glad for it. The shops, the vending carts and scenery. Anything to take my mind of the feeling of foreboding and dread at wherever we were headed. I could only hope Anna was alright. Calm, peaceful.

And that's when I noticed them. Angels. Dozens of them, in possession of striking human vessels who were dressed in expensive and beautiful things and seeming to enjoy the day with the handsome, well dressed humans that commanded their attention with jokes and tokens of affection. I'd never seen anything like it. The clothes they wore were sharp and crisp, ablaze with so many colors that they rivaled the trees and flowers around them. As we turned onto a small bridge we passed an Angel I thought I recognized but I was tired and we weren't moving slowly. Something about it all unsettled my nerves but I didn't entirely understand why.

The wagon drove on, down one twisty little road after another. They were dark in spite of the hour. Partially from the humid rain, now coming down in sheets, but also from the buildings crammed together on either side of the narrow paths. They were dark, wood and nearly identical, lining roads that snaked through the town for eons. We kept going and my growing anxiety made a short trip feel like never-ending miles until we were finally slowing in front of one of those identical buildings where a pretty woman in black and purple met us beneath a flamboyant parasol.

No words, once again. Only a small, leather bag of coins like before but this time it was the woman holding the money. The driver reached for it and the woman held it back. "We agreed." He insisted, gruff and dark, speaking for the first time in my recollection. He'd been silent on the trip, save occasional mumbles but nothing so threatening.

"We sure did, Honey." she was pale, dark curly hair loosely twisted into a knot at the back of her head. Casual, even a little sloppy like she hadn't thought she'd have to leave her home this morning. I must have taken a wrong breath because, suddenly, her eyes flicked to me and I could swear they were dancing along with the wicked grin she wore. In a plummy shade of bright red in stark contrast to her bare skin. But other than a quick wink she didn't pay me any mind, "But I wanna see both of them before we settle anything."

The driver was silent for a long time, like he knew he stood to somehow lose no matter what he did. But she wouldn't pay him any other way and he'd come so far that, reluctantly, he relented and leaned to his side to take the ornate wooden box containing the last of my sisters I knew to be alive. He turned a small, bronze latch beside it's lid and lifted it open.

The orb that had trapped Anna was darker than before, though there was still a soft, swirling glow inside to attest to it's contents. Without invitation, the woman plucked Anna out of her cage and turned the orb over in her hand. She examined it closely with an expression that bordered on disgust, "What the hell is this supposed to be?" Driver only shrugged, in no position to argue with a buyer already not satisfied with the merchandise, "Don't shrug at me, you were supposed to bring two. What does this look like, a charity?" the orb found it's place in the box and the lid snapped shut. With a grunt of frustration, the whole affair was shoved back in the driver's hands and she sorted half the money out of the bag, shoving it in her pocket. That's when the woman's attention turned back to me, one of her hands strongly and roughly taking my arm as she started to drag me from the wagon, "This one? Yes. The other one, _no_."

That's all Driver needed to hear as he was tossed the bag of coins. I was barely out of the thing before the reigns whipped at the horses sides and they were off again. It was fast, the exchange, just like that. I struggled, of course I did. My sister was in that wagon and, as the woman hauled me away I heard my voice loudly echo her name back to me in the street before the gates locked me into my new home.

**Author's Note:**

> Trying something new, here! I've never written Destiel fanfiction before, but I thought it might be fun. Loosely based on Memoirs of a Geisha (the film, not the book) - Rating's a bit high because of sexual content planned later on.


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